Month Number Two

So I've kind of noticed that I haven't written in a month or more actually. Sorry about that but I think that fact already says more about my past month more than 10 posts could (and no: "my last month was boring and I didn't do anything worth mentioning" is NOT the right answer). The right answer is that I was so busy I didn't have time to write a blog.
Once I finally had time to sit down and write a blog I had the joy of trying to figure out what I've actually been doing the past month. I know I have been doing something (me being busy and all) but I just couldn't remember when I did what. The past month has just been a blur of events. But after extensive research of facebook statuses, facebook messages, emails, my last blog post, text messages and the calender on my phone I was finally able to piece my last month together, and here are some of the memorable moments:

La Bolsa Park (27.10.)
So actually this isn't that memorable, but it's one of the few things that I took pictures of in the last month, thus it has to be on the blog (cause what is a blog post without pictures???) ;)
The park is very nice and consists of beach, with awesome rock formations and rock pools, a cliffy-thing that leads down to the beach and on top of the hill a lighthouse (even though that isn't actually really nice, since it's a modern lighthouse. It's actually really ugly). All around that there are trees and fields and paths and it's altogether a very nice place and definitely somewhere that I want to go to again (even though that could be a bit harder now, since I now live farther away from it).
And here are said pictures:

I just found the formation of the rocks amazing

some may already know this picture, but I thought I'd put it on for all those that don't have facebook :)

me walking to the "perfect picture place" :P

another picture place (and if you're asking yourself why there are so many picture of me walking to the places where I actually wanted my picture to be taken, that's because of my dear friend and photographer who thought it would be funny to take 1000 picture of me walking to the place I told him to take a picture of and then only take 1-2 pictures when I actually get there...)

After being in the park I went to my first Aussie pub

We got chips (=french fries)

And another Aussie experience: I tried my first meat pie and I love it :D

Of course with tomato sauce

Thanksgiving (8.11.)
So I know that Thanksgiving was actually on the 22.11. but since Calvary Young Adults was kind of busy in the second half of November they decided to celebrate Thanksgiving earlier. I maybe should add that Aussies usually don't celebrate Thanksgiving, they actually have no clue what it is about (besides the being thankful part :P ), but since there are (or used to be) 5 Americans (me included) in the Young Adults group they decided to celebrate it anyways.
The food was so good and I had a great time. So weird that the first proper Thanksgiving dinner that I've had in ages would be in Australia, who would have thought that? :D

my first plate (I got seconds and dessert) :D

mashed sweet potatoes with marshmallows on top, had never eaten that combination before but it was lovely :D 

a very happy Susan with lovely food :)

My move out (10.11.)
So as some may have heard, read, seen, noticed: I am now living somewhere else! Up to then I was living with the Watts family (good friends of the family), but it was never planned to be a long term thing and from the beginning I was looking to move into a shared accommodation  The search was a bit hard (or better said me choosing), but in the end I chose to move into a house with 3 other people living in it. The two main people who are there the whole time are Ben and Matt. I know them both from church (Matt I've known since I've been in Australia and Ben I just got to know when I moved in). The other person in Monnie. I actually haven't met her yet, since she's moving in this weekend. She'll also only be living here during the week, since she works on the sunshine coast. Right next door (and basically also a flatmate) is Jordan. She's also from church and as mentioned she's basically also part of the shared accommodation since she's always over. I get along really well with everybody and really feel at home and welcome. We're going to start cooking together regularly and both flatmates are quite clean and most important: they are very considerate and can put up with my occasional bossiness :D Oh and my nickname is Doctor Su, I'm kind of the "in-house" psychologist...don't know how that happened :P
My room still isn't fully furnished (still waiting on a bed I'll be getting from a friend (correction: I have the bed now! :D )) but otherwise I have everything I need and the coolest thing is that most of what I have I got for free from friends (the pros of being part of God's big family).
For all who don't know, this is the first time I'm living independently so it's kind of a big step. Up to now it's been quite good, just definitely a lot more work. What makes it harder is that fact that I'm not doing so well physically, so grocery shopping is always a challenge. But I'm managing well with the help of my friends ("I get by with a little help from friends, yah, I get ... with a little help from my friends" :P ) No, not really, my friends are very decent :D

Black Tie Arvo Sesh (25.11.)
So many (or actually most) probably don't even know what a "Arvo Sesh" is. So here's the explanation: it stands for afternoon session (arvo being the aussie slang for afternoon, and well session was too long so, as with most words in their vocabulary, they decided to also shorten that). It is a free dinner for the Young Adults group of Calvary an hour before the evening service starts and since the semester is done (and most young adults are students) the last arvo sesh for the year was a special, fancy party and everyone was supposed to come dressed all fancy. I don't really have any good pictures from the night yet. The only one I have is where I'm making a weird face since I had food in my mouth, but I'll put it up anyways, just don't judge :P

My friend also had food in his mouth, thus his weird expression :D

Nerf gun battle (27.11.)

Every week there's connect group on Tuesday which is, in short, a group of young adults from church that meet up once a week to either hang out or to do bible study. Well with the semester being done we also had a last meeting for the year and it was legen...wait for it...wait for it...DARY (and I mean Barney would even agree with me). We had a nerf gun battle (for all those that don't know what a nerf gun is: it's a plastic gun that shoots little foam darts) in UV light with glow-in-the-dark-paint. In short it was AWESOME and exactly what I needed since I hadn't had a good day. Only bad thing about it: I ruined my white tank top, but it was worth it :)

me posing with my little gun (there were only a few big ones and the guys grabbed them in the beginning)

Work:
So in my past blog posts I have written a lot about my different social activities, but haven't really written anything about the real reason I am in Australia (which would be to volunteer for Metamorphic International). So I think I'll take some time to do so now.
One reason I actually haven't written much yet is because my work week has only really been regular since last week. A few reasons why it wasn't regular before hand was because our boss, Lindsay Clarke, was overseas. Alos Dan, the person I'll be working together with the most, was also overseas and added to that all the office was just opened around 1,5 months ago and was still in the process of being set up.
Up to now the things I've done have been: data entry (this has been my main job, but it should be changing into something I'll just do 1-2 hours a day), admin stuff, writing progress reports and project proposals (I'm actually just starting this and still have looooots to learn) and managing the social media (also something I still have to get in to). Plus I'm always the one who answers the phone with a very happy and cheerful sounding "Metamorphic International, Susan DeTroy speaking". One thing that isn't my job though is making coffee (even though if you are visiting I will gladly make you one), but I successfully got out of being the "coffee-girl" on the first day through showing my three other (male) collegues how to use the mashine :D
All joking aside: I have great collegues and am really blessed to be able to work in such an awesome and visionary organisation like Metamorphic. :)

Summary:
I'm still doing really well over here. I've of course had a few bad days (or a also a bad week) but altogether I know this is so right and am thankful God led me here instead of letting me follow my original plan of staying in Germany and starting to study right away. :)
I actually like it so much that right now I would love to stay here forever. Of course that could very well change (who knows how I'll feel about Australia in a few days/weeks/months) but right now I'm loving it here.

Love,
Susan

In The Lovely Land Of Oz

So this is the blog where I'll be talking, amongst other things, about the Aussie culture and especially the dialect. As always I'll be writing in paragraphs titled so that you can read the part you want to.

Oz:
So one thing that first struck me about Australia is how much it is like the US. It starts at the big shopping malls, the big stores, the poorly built houses and ends at the big wasteful cars and lack of interest in other countries (at least as far as I have noticed in the news). Of course there are parts that are very british: school uniforms even at public schools, the presence of black tea at almost every occasion (you have to be careful, cause if they ask you if you want tea, it automatically means black tea) and different words and the accent. Of course the dialect isn't 100% british, but depending who you talk to, their English can sound very british. So to the weird words/expressions they have:
thongs = flip-flops
boot = trunk of the car
arvo = afternoon
dinner = supper
capsicum = pepper
togs = general term for swimwear
singlet = tank top/ wife beater
fortnight = two weeks
to be keen = to be interested/excited/eager
rubbish = garbage
lollies = candy
push bike = bike
mobile phone = cellphone
They don't say g'day anymore, at least never when they're speaking normaly. Well I also haven't met any real "country" person, so someone that is from the less populated areas of Australia; the Australia everyone thinks about when they hear "Australia" :)

Altogether they like shortening names with a "y" sound. So Brisbane is Brisy/Brisie (don't quite know how they spell it). Football is footy, mosquito is mosy and of course that continues when it comes to nicknames, however I still have successfully prevented them (or at least most of them) from calling me Suzy (or any variation of it).

Of course there are also weird Aussie foods, or combinations:
-A cookie called a tim-tam. It is a soft chocolate dough that is covered in chocolate, so basically a chocolate bomb. But that isn't all of it, see there's something even better: a tim-tam-slam. It's when you bite off one corner and then the other corner diagonal of it and take a cup of hot chocolate, use the tim-tam as a straw and suck up the hot chocolate till you notice that the tim-tam is starting to melt and is just filled with hot chocolate and then quickly slam it into your mouth. It is sooooo lovely (lovely being another word that I can finally say here without sounding like someone from an old fashioned movie) and the ultimate chocolate bomb :)
-they put beets on their sandwiches/hamburgers
-vegemite: I actually still haven't tried it, since I've often heard from different people how gross or weird tasting it is. However it is on my list to try before I leave.

That's all I can think of right now, but I'm sure I'll be adding a few new things to every blog post, after all I've only seen a small fraction of Australia up to now :)

My fourth week:
As some of my dear facebook friends may have read, on the weekend of the 14th I watched the sun rise. The occasion was actually the birthday of one guy from church. He was supposed to go to this lookout with one of his friends and we (the few young adults that were crazy enough to get up at 3am for this) were going to surprise him. The only problem of this whole thing was that in the end we were only 6 people and the birthday guy didn't even come because of various reasons. But it still was totally worth it. When we got there it was still dark enough to see the stars (I can now find the south star :D ). Then the stars slowly faded and the sun slowly began to rise. It was so beautiful to see the colors develop and I must say I don't understand how people can see such beauty and not be filled with awe and wonder for God. After hanging out there for around 2 hours we went to Mooloolaba to eat breakfast together. Then I quickly went home, got changed and went to the morning service. In the end of the service I was so dead tired I could barely stand. I should maybe mention that on saturday night I was at a women's event at church and didn't get back till 11pm. And that wasn't even it: for some disturbing reason I was so hyper I just couldn't fall asleep, so I probably only slept 2-3 hours that night. But when I came back from the morning service I also barely slept, so by the end of the day (which took a while, since after the evening service I went to the young adults house party) I was so tired and hyper, also through the copious amounts of coffee, that I managed to hold a monologue for most of the drive home. Luckly the driver was equally tired and can thus barely remember a word I said :)
But it was an awesome weekend, like all of my weekends up to now.
Here some pictures from the sunrise adventure:

the sky getting lighter...

and lighter...

and lighter

it was really cold, thus the scarf around my head :)

now all of the stars are gone

the beautiful glasshouse mountains

the sun is almost there...

tadaaaa :D

the group of people that were there with me (and yes I especially picked a picture where you can't quite see them, since I don't think any of them would like pictures of the morning in the internet, since we all look like we just rolled out of bed :)

"second" sunrise

on the walk down to the car

the bush in Australia 

me holding the sun 

the beach in Mooloolaba

my lovely (and rather overpriced) breakfast :)

Summary of my first month:
I must say I can't quite believe that I've already been here for a month. The weeks have really passed in a blur, especially the week days. This leads to me usually not being able to answer anything intellligible to the question "how was your week?" because the week just passes so quickly I can barely remember what I did when. The only way I can keep track of time is through the weekends, though that also is helping too much anymore as the pace picks up. So I've resorted to counting the weeks on my fingers or just looking on the calender on my phone :)
I feel like I'm in the right place, especially because of the amazing people in the young adults group in church. They really make me feel so welcome and appreciated. I already know now that I will miss them really badly, but I am trying not to think of that, since I'll still be here for 9 months.

So much from me :)
Pease and Love,
Susan

P.S.(in case you're wondering why this post is called "the lovely land of oz" it is because Oz is another name for australia. I don't think they're really referring to "the wizard of oz"-Oz, but I still have yet to figure it quite out. The only sense it makes to me is that Australians call themselves/are called "aussies" which could also be written/pronounced "ozzies" (especially if you pronounce the "o" the way the aussies do) thus Oz would make sense) :)

The Massive Post

Hey,

so I have soooo much to tell, especially since I haven't written for a while, but I will try to keep it short. As always I'll be writing in paragraphs that will be titled, so read the paragraphs you want to and leave out  the rest, I won't be insulted :D

Young Adults Retreat:
So on my second week here in Australia I went on a Young Adults Retreat from the church I've been going to, called Calvary. Altogether it was really great. The camping part of it was horrid, especially since I hate camping, but it was worth it because I was able to get to know so many new people. The young adults group from the church is so great, they are really considerate, helpfull and selfless (or at least the majority of the ones I have gotten to know). I already know that I will really miss them all when I go back to Germany in almost 9 months. I leaned a lot of new ausi words (I'll have to dedicate a blog post just to that sometime) and experienced ausi things, some fun (tim-tam-slam) and some not fun (4 wheel drive on the beach).
And here are some pictures:

this was at the restaurant closest to the camping site, it was so weird to see it

                                   

they even decorated it with german and bavarian flags and there was German music later on

these kinds of birds are everywhere, so beautiful

view from my tent :)

this was on saturday at rainbow bay

to get there you had to drive in a four-wheel-drive car, thus there are tracks on the beach

I thought the hills looked so cool, with the mix of sand, orangish rock and  trees

they were playing tag football on the beach

a cute little crab, theoretically there were thousands there, but I only found one

the view from the sanddune

some guys had the genius idea of taking a canoe to slide down the dune, it acutally worked better than I thought

back at the camp

the view to the south

the view to the north

this is where we camped, as one can see, exactly at the beach, which at the first thought is nice, second thought should remind you though that beach=sand. Need I say more?

Brisbane:
So on the Friday after that I was in Brisbane for a doctor's appointment. The appointment itsself was only an hour long, but because I had to use public transportation it took 4 hours to get there and 4 hours to get back. The trip wasn't acutally too bad, especially since I was able to see quite a bit of the landscape between Buddina and Brisbane during the train ride. It was also cool to be able to see Brisbane. It's a really nice city, as far as I could see. Pictures follow:

this was in Fortitude Valley, the station where I had to wait for an hour (the inside of the station looked nicer). I was nicely informed on the day before I went to Brisbane that Fortitude Valley is one of the more dangerous areas of Brisbane, the best thing being that the train conductor wished people a SAFE and nice day right before the stop, that's never a good sign, but I survived :)

such a cool mix to have trees growing right before that modern office building

a view at the skyline of Brisbane

you may have noticed by now that there are a lot of pictures of buildings, that is because I always find buildings quite fascinating

luckily the light was just red, so I was able to get some good pictures of this square. So weird to have a little european-looking church right next to all these modern skyscrapers

all of the people walking to the central station in brisbane

buildings that one can see from the central station

Saturday Barbecue:
So on Saturday I finally went to my first Ausi barbecue. It actually wasn't that special of one, thus it can't be counted really as one, but I was able to sample typical things eaten at an ausi barbecue.

so there are barbecues right along the beach in mooloolaba

my plate, the thing on the left is called something that starts with a "r"

mine was especially formed to resemble Australia, the ketchup being Tasmania

Sushi Sunday:
Last Sunday was so great (as some may already know through facebook). After the morning service I went with a group of young adults for coffee, sushi and then the beach. It finally was warm enough to go into the water, so I that Sunday can be marked as the first day I went swimming in Australia :)
The not so good thing about the beach was that it was really windy so if you laid on the beach you couldn't open your eyes, otherwise you would have sand in your eyes. After only being at the beach for an hour I was totally covered in sand (there was even sand on my eyelashes) and it took me a few days to get all of the sand out of my hair (washing it did help, but didn't get all of it out).
I got to church really early since the person I drove with was doing the camera (yep the church has two cameras for the service, one in the back and one handheld on the stage, so awesome :D ) and had to be there early. But it was fine, I just hung out with the people that were also there early to help out. At 5 there was food and at 6 the service started. After the service I went to Mooloolaba again (it's the tradition of the young adults group) and stayed there till 10:30pm. It was a long, but amazing day and I came home happy and totally hyper active :D

So this is Maroochydore/Cotton Tree (it's really confusing here, cause all towns just kind of melt together, there's no real space in between, so it's hard to say where you really are at the moment :D

to my defense why there are a lot of pictures of me: my camera was kidnapped

a very cool shell I just found on the way

I know I have my eyes closed, but it's the only picture of the sunshine plaza and that is the biggest shopping centre on the sunshine coast

at the sushi restaurant

trying to explain sushi to me, in the end he just picked two different kind out for me

I was starting to get nervous about all the pictures being taken, especially since their goal was to take "natural pictures" of me, so pictures where I'm not staring at the camera. Turns out I have this sick urge to always look at the camera when I know someone's taking a picture of me. And not only that, I also have a 6th sense that notices when a picture is being taken of me. I know, I'm weird :)

they were all staring at me, just waiting for me to take my first bite (only two other people ordered something) and since this was my fist time eating sushi I served as their entertainment. Sushi is meant to be eaten in one bite, which is not easy for someone with a small mouth like mine. Anyways they were all staring at me and I was getting really nervous and was giggling the whole time and after gathering up my courage I managed to stuff the sushi roll in my mouth without making a mess, which I am very proud of :D

Bowling:

Yesterday I went bowling at a typical, cut-out-of-a-movie bowling centre. The bowling itsself wasn't so special, but it was the first time I had been to a place like that, thus I HAD to take pictures :)

the group of young adults I was there with

Thank you for your patience and I promise to make the next post shorter :)

Peace and Love,

Susan